Treatments of clothes to confer to them various properties have been extensively discussed in the art. In particular, an area of constant research is the area of wrinkle reduction. That is, worn clothes are generally wrinkled to a lesser or greater degree, and the process of laundering generally increases the wrinkling of clothes. Thus, chemicals have been provided to diminish the wrinkling of clothes. The use of such chemicals, combined with the traditional process of ironing provides for clothes which are clean and dewrinkled.
However, such clean and dewrinkled clothes will re-wrinkle as soon as they are worn, and before that while they are stored waiting to be worn. Thus the dewrinkling of clothes described above is at best a very temporary achievement. It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a solution to the problem of dry wrinkle formation, i.e. the formation of wrinkles when dry clothes are stored waiting to be worn, and while clothes are worn (i.e. in-wear wrinkle formation).
To our knowledge, the prior art has not addressed this particular problem. Aminosilicones have been described for the treatment of clothes in numerous publications, but only for the benefit of softening clothes or gliding benefit in ironing aids. It is also generally suggested in the art that all fabric softeners have the ability to dewrinkle clothes, but the particular problem of preventing the formation of wrinkles is not discussed. The use of aminosilicones to treat clothes in a domestic context has been disclosed for instance in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,062,971, 5,064,543, WO 00/24853, WO/9201773, EP 300 525, EP 150 867, EP 150 872. The use of aminosilicones comprising sterically hindered functional groups to treat textiles in an industrial context has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,952, EP 659 930, WO 00/5315. And processes for the manufacture of such aminosilicones have been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,688,889, WO 96/16110, WO 96/16124, WO 96/16127, WO 96/18667 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,792,825.